Spicy Soy Dijon Pork Tenderloin

Learning to eat healthy has been an experiment in more ways than I could have ever imagined. For several years, the only choice of meat I prepared was chicken. To add to it, there were the occasional dishes made with ground meat like meatballs, Salisbury steak, Indian style mutton keema and Bolognese sauce etc. All my efforts to cook whole pieces of meat would mostly end up in disaster. To the point that my husband would incessantly joke about my incapability of handling "real meat". And for the last 2 years in Mumbai, even though I did a lot more with chicken and fish, but the availability of other meats was not so easy. So when we moved back to Singapore, I would spend time in the supermarket and online figuring out different cuts of meat and the best ways to cook them. Now, its very easy to cook fatty cuts of meat because the fat renders as the meat cooks and adds moisture and flavour to the meat but I still struggled to cook the lean cuts of meat.

Pork tenderloin is a really healthy cut of meat. It is naturally lean and absorbs flavours very well. But since it is lean, it is also easy to overcook and ends up chewy. There are a few tricks to getting this one correct. One of them is to marinade it for a considerable period of time so that it can absorb the flavors and moisture from the marinade. The cooking process for this is a 2 step process. First, the marinated meat is grilled on a pan, seared on all sides and then cooked in a preheated oven to cook the meat all the way through. With pork it is very important to cook it to the right internal temperature which is 60 C.

The marinade for this is very simple and works very well. The 2 major ingredients that really help are the soy sauce and mustard. Soy sauce is a natural way to flavour the meat and make it more tender without removing any water out of it. Mustard just works wonderfully with the pork and accentuates the other flavors without overpowering it in any way. I adapted the recipe for this marinade from the entry on the blog Budget Bytes. I did make some changes. I reduced the amount of oil called for in the recipe and omitted the sugar. But I added a decent quantity of Sriracha sauce to the marinade to make it spicy.

This one is a brilliant recipe. Easy, just needs a bit of planning ahead. It takes minimal time to prepare and cooking is pretty straightforward. It does require stepping out of the comfort zone on cooking meats but it is a very healthy way to feed the family and they will love every bit of it. Of course the marinade can be adapted to your own tastes.

Ingredients:
1 lb (450 gms) pork tenderloin
2 tblspn Dijon mustard
3 tblspn Light Soya Sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1 tsp dried parsley leaves
1/2 tsp crushed black pepper
1 tblspn sriracha sauce
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Method:
1. Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Add the pork to this marinade and leave in the refrigerator for 4-8 hours.

2. When you are ready to cook, preheat an oven to 350F/180C. Heat up a grill pan over medium high heat. Remove the excess marinade from the tenderloin. Put the tenderloin on the heated grill pan and sear well on each side, turning when each side is golden brown.

3. Transfer the tenderloin to a baking sheet and cook in an oven for about 15-20 minutes.

4. Check the doneness of the meat with a meat thermometer. It should register 60C on a meat thermometer when inserted in the thickest part of the meat.